by Stephen Hunt
‘Sweet Circle,’ swore Jack, stretching over the railing to look down at unfamiliar symbols turning on the thinking machines’ drums. This is nothing like the antiquated standard equipment I trained on back in the guild. ‘I’ve never seen the like — what’s it doing here?’
‘A folly, Mister Keats,’ said Oldcastle. ‘A folly that has never worked. And the other reason, besides our blessed armour plating, why the Iron Partridge handles like a whale of the air, large and slow-like.’
‘The softbody designers intended for these thinking machines to control the airship,’ said Coss. ‘Using a crew a tenth of the size of a normal ship of the line.’
‘Not just the airship, old steamer,’ said Oldcastle, pointing up to a rubber-sealed skylight in the ceiling from where the frill of massive mortar tubes was visible outside, stretching like a spine of chimneys across the top of the ship. ‘But all the gunnery on this wicked organ of death we’re lugging about on our backs, too.’
‘And it never worked?’ asked Jack.
‘Over-engineered,’ said Oldcastle. ‘Much like the mind of the fool who designed it — too clever for his own mortal good. When the navy realized the vessel’s automation couldn’t cope, they spent a second fortune redesigning the Iron Partridge to work manually with a full crew — and the airship still didn’t fly well enough. Our main job here is to make sure that the transaction engines don’t get in the way of the crew. The systems still try and come back fully online every now and then, working their automated mischief. These transaction engines were buried too wicked deep into the fabric of the ship for us to allow the boilers to run cold and still their drums altogether. Just enough power to let her tick over and no more, that’s what we must be about.’ He pointed to a line of hammocks hung up behind the spherical boilers, the sailors’ wooden air chests sitting beneath. ‘You can bed down there. You’ll be glad of the boilers when we’re running high and cold. Warmest place on the Iron Partridge, so it is. The watch in the crow’s-nest dome down the corridor come in here after they’ve stood a duty, to toast their gloves against our plates.’
Better than the cramped confines of the crew’s quarters on the lower deck where Jack had been camped until now, he supposed. Blanket Bay, as the airship’s sailors referred to the long swathe of hammocks.
‘Is it only us up here?’ asked Jack.
Oldcastle nodded sadly, gesturing to the rows of empty punch-card writers and injection desks opposite the boilers. ‘There’s not many trained enginemen and cardsharps with a taste for the navy’s foul food and parliament’s meagre pay. Even our two stokers are on loan from the captain of marines.’
Jack nodded. So, was this pit of broken thinking machines the reason the RAN had been so eager to rescue him from the gallows? But then there had been the man in court. Jack knew his face from somewhere. But where?
‘We might have been the pride of the fleet,’ said Oldcastle with a melancholy expression pinching his cheeks. ‘Gliding over the battlefield like an eagle and letting enemy cannon fire bounce off our hull while our mortar shells found the foe’s helmets as if the very steel in our guns were bewitched. But here we are instead, on another desperate voyage, with cruel fate carrying us far from home. Damn my unlucky stars.’ He looked at the curious faces of Jack and Coss. ‘But I mustn’t say too much about that. The first lieutenant’s orders are the first lieutenant’s to keep.’
‘You mean the captain’s orders?’ said Jack.
‘Indeed, Mister Keats. Too much heat in here. It dries a man’s mind without a little wine to help moisten the thinking.’
‘It is clear we are travelling south, warrant sky officer,’ said Coss Shaftcrank. ‘Every sailor on this ship can read that from the sun and the stars.’
‘Master cardsharp, if you please, old steamer,’ said Oldcastle. ‘A title you would normally hear when saluting the supply clerks of Admiralty House, I admit, but it is mine for this voyage.’
‘And the newssheets have been full of talk of war, master cardsharp,’ said Jack. ‘With Cassarabia to the south. Now that they can build ships like ours.’
‘Oh, they have always been capable of building ships like these, lad,’ said Oldcastle. ‘Floating them with a gas that doesn’t explode like a grenade when you strike a spark in the lifting chamber has been a trick that’s proved a little harder for the empire to master, but one they seem to have got hold of now.’
‘Will it be war, sir?’ asked Jack.
‘Always, lad. There’s two cocks-of-the-lane swaggering down the street, and only enough space on the cobbles for one of them. And the caliph has to build a great new temple every century or so, with Cassarabian tradition demanding it be paid for by tribute taken from heathens and new conquests, not by his own people. Booty for his army and supporters, to keep them all on-side and well greased. Yes, there’ll be war alright, now that the Cassarabians have airships to take on the Royal Aerostatical Navy. The only question is when. And whatever the answer to that, you’d better hope that we’re not on board the ship when it breaks out. Not that you’ll hear such a view coming from Admiralty House. They think that because the RAN’s been sailing in the clouds for centuries, our tactics and experience will see the Cassarabians off like cheap whipped hounds if they dare to drift across our border with mischief in mind.’
‘You don’t think we will?’
‘I’ve never been privy to an easy victory, Mister Keats,’ said the old officer. ‘No, indeed, I don’t think I know what one of those even looks like.’
Now Jack could see why the crew seemed so restless on board the airship, pressed men and the scrapings of the barrel, sailing on an unpopular scrapyard vessel towards trouble. Whatever their mission was, it was obvious that Admiralty House hadn’t wanted any part of it. And that meant politics. Army interference, or parliamentarians in the House of Guardians ramming it down the reluctant throats of the braided naval uniforms who thought they knew best.
The three of them were meant to ensure that the chamber of thinking machines didn’t interfere with the running of the ship. But who is going to ensure that I return alive to keep Alan and Saul safe?
Omar yelled as the great winged lizard, the drak that Farris Uddin had named as Quarn, banked and began to descend towards Bladetenbul. Never in all his years as a slave had Omar expected he would see Cassarabia’s capital city — and if someone had told him a week ago that his introduction to its immense spill of streets, souks and towers would be from a saddle at a hundred feet, he would have joked that the speaker had been exposed to the heat of the sun for too long.
The light of Bladetenbul is the light of the world, ran the old saying, and from this high up Omar could see why. There was a great fortified wall running around the outside of the seven hills the city sprawled across, and behind the fortifications stood the capital’s sun towers, each fluted construction filled with boilers and capturing the reflected light of the thousands of great mirror arrays that circled Bladetenbul. Water into steam, steam to drive the city’s machines, and the steam caught again and fed back into the system of reservoirs and pipes — far too precious a resource to waste on the sky under god, as the heathen northern nations were said to.
Light from the mirrors seemed to reflect off the drak’s green-scaled skin, dazzling Omar where he sat behind Farris Uddin, strapped above the base of the creature’s long sinuous neck. The rushing of the wind and the drumming of the drak’s wings made it hard to communicate with Farris Uddin — not that the taciturn killer had much to say to Omar. He really was an imperial guardsman, that much was certain. Sand dogs and bounty hunters did not ride such creatures as this, that Omar knew. As much effort as the womb mages of Omar’s old house had put into the breeding and nurture of salt-fish, it was child’s play compared to the skill and resources needed to create and raise something as large and complex as a drak.
They whisked lower over the city, low enough for Omar to see the bazaars crowded with canopy-covered stalls selling silks and spiced rice, i
ced-water sellers weighed down with gas-cooled tanks on their backs, importuning the clients coming out of the great domed bathhouses. The drak followed the line of the stone pipe network that fed the capital with its precious water supplies, flying so near to the ground that Omar winced as they banked around minarets, the breeze from their passage ruffling the robes of the watermen at the major tap-points, officials inspecting the lines of those waiting for any sign of unpaid water taxes.
On the drak hurtled, riding the thermals from the whitewashed city below and hardly beating a wing now, gliding up towards the tallest of the hills where the Jahan Palace waited. Not for nothing was this called the Jahan — simply, the world. A tower-tall crystal dome on the brow of the hill, ruby coloured and surrounded by smaller emerald green domes. World enough for the Caliph Eternal and his court. Sultans and emirs came here to renew their vows and the pledges of their nations to the mighty emperor of emperors, Akil Jaber Issman, blood descendent of the legendary Ben Issman himself, his name be blessed. What chance would the barely freed slave of an outlawed heretic house have when swimming in such perilous currents?
Farris Uddin’s massive drak glided towards a series of fortifications sitting watchfully behind the massive central dome of the palace. Embedded on top of a rocky rise, it was the eyrie of the guardsmen that protected the caliph and his realm. Tilting back, the drak used its wings to break, two massive clawed feet touching down on the rock floor of a cave-like opening, then swinging forward to walk them into a hangar where jagged walls were hung with rows of colourful shields. A stableman emerged from a door in the wall and ran a cable through the drak’s harness, before receiving Farris Uddin’s instructions on the creature’s care. As the young stable hand led the drak away, Farris turned to Omar. ‘That is Boulous, my retainer. He is a slave, and though his blood is originally of Jackelian stock, his heart has been raised to be as stout as any guardsman that serves the order. I chose him for his keen mind. Let his caution, wisdom and loyalty become yours.’
‘I shall be at least twice as loyal as he; you have my word under the sight of god and Ben Issman, his name be blessed. Are they in the palace below, master? The priests of the new sect that had my house declared heretic?’ asked Omar.
‘Indeed they are,’ said Farris Uddin, splashing cooling water on his shaved head from a wall-mounted basin.
‘Do not sell me to them, master. I shall work harder for you than a dozen-’
Farris Uddin raised his hand for Omar to stop and pulled out the young slave boy’s roll of indenture papers. He pointed to the sigils sitting in the bottom corner. ‘Can you read that?’
‘It is the code stamp of a transaction engine, master.’
‘I know what it is. I asked can you read it?’
Omar traced his fingers across the embossed code of vertical bar shapes. ‘It is the date I became a freeman.’ Omar ran his fingers across the code again, confused. ‘But-’
‘Always read the small print, Omar Barir,’ instructed the guardsman. ‘Your papers as a freeman were drawn up by your father two months ago. Long enough for you to have travelled over the desert with a water caravan and made your way to civilized company on your own. Before, mark you,’ he raised a warning finger, ‘before the House of Barir was declared heretic.’
‘I do not understand, master?’
‘A slave cannot serve as the cadet of an imperial guardsman,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘But a freeman can. And in the service of the Caliph Eternal you become Centless. Those in military or civil service are not permitted to follow any one sect. Your oath is directly to the lawful descendents of Ben Issman, unifier of the one true god, and the empire, his name be blessed. No other loyalties are permitted. Not nation, not tribe nor house or sect.’
‘But why am I to be your cadet?’ Omar blurted out. Why did you venture all the way out to the western coast to spare me from a heretic’s fate?
‘Because my last one fell off a drak,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘And because it will annoy the keepers of the new sect endlessly to see the last blood of the House of Barir walking the palace wearing guardsman’s robes. And for many other reasons too, but they are not yours to know.’
‘What call did my father have on you?’ said Omar. ‘He sent for you, did he not? That is why you came to Haffa.’
‘Call enough,’ growled the guardsman. ‘Now hold your tongue and save your questions, boy. A cadet calls his guardsman master as well as a slave does.’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Down there,’ Farris Uddin pointed out of the hangar towards the palace, ‘under those great domes rules the most powerful man in the world. Sultans from Zahyan, Seyadi, Fahamutla and a dozen other kingdoms come to beg favours, offer tribute and remind the Caliph Eternal what good, loyal clients their countries make for the empire. The high keepers of the hundred sects of the Holy Cent jostle each other aside to shower the emperor of emperors with his share of temple tithes. Womb mages vie for favour and peddle promises of miracle cures and prodigiously lethal new creatures. Viziers plot their way to higher council, while generals and admirals struggle to obtain new commissions and appointments. Courtiers and courtesans are as the grass you will walk on, the sighs of their greed, envies, hopes and ambitions are the breeze you will feel on your cheeks. Down there is opulence without equal in the world, but it is not a safe place. You will quickly come to yearn for a world of simple fishermen and uncomplicated water farming.’
Omar nodded. The waves from that world down below had already lapped out and destroyed his own familiar existence, setting him adrift. There was an irony that of all the places in the empire, the tides of fate should have carried Omar here.
You have a cruel sense of humour, my lady fate. You cut away my chains and then you steal my world. And here you are now, pushing a sword into my hands. Whatever weapons this killer gives me I shall master, and when I am as great a guardsman as I was a slave, I shall find the people who killed my father and burnt my home to the ground. And one day I will find and free Shadisa, this I swear.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Help me,’ begged the six-year-old stuck down the claustrophobically tight shaft. ‘I can’t breathe down here, I’m choking, please-’
But Jack couldn’t help. He was running for his life through the vaults of Lords Bank, hissing waves of poison gas swirling at his heels, the shouts and shots of the bank guards and the constabulary whistling around him. Maggie was waiting for Jack at the breached wall, trying to stop him ducking back out into the sewers.
‘Go back for them, you can’t just leave the boys in there.’
‘It’s little Tozer,’ said Jack, ‘he’s stuck — we’ll all die if we try to pull him out.’
‘It’s not just Tozer,’ shouted Maggie, ‘he’s in there with your brothers, Jack. Your brothers are thieves now, just like you.’
‘No!’ screamed Jack, but the bank’s wall had collapsed behind him. He scrabbled at the fallen masonry with his nails, digging until his fingers were broken and bleeding.
Boyd was laughing in Jack’s ear, shaking him by the shoulders until he felt as if he were rocking on the deck of a ship. ‘Leave them to die. Leave all the runts to die.’
Jack gasped as he woke, his cheeks wet with tears. For the boy he couldn’t save, or for the two brothers he had abandoned to their fate?
‘Damn me for a coward,’ whispered Jack to himself, rubbing his eyes as the makeshift bed swung gently. For that is what I am. Try as he might, Jack couldn’t get used to sleeping in a hammock, the sling of fabric between the boilers permitting its occupant no shifting or rolling from side to side. It was an all-enveloping swaddle that moved of its own accord with the trims and turns of the airship.
As if this alien way of sleeping wasn’t enough, there was the noise of the ship: the Iron Partridge’s croaking beams, the crackling from behind the closed furnace doors, the rattle and clack of the spinning transaction-engine drums — a constant low rumble even on their reduced-power setting. And now the Iron Partr
idge was sailing through a storm, the rain drumming on the sealed skylight above, the armoured glass failing to soften the whistle of the wind through the forest of mortar tubes running along the spine of her hull.
Groaning at the snores from the two Benzari stokers, Jack swung his legs off the hammock and touched his feet down on the deck, the surface every bit as warm as John Oldcastle had promised in the space between the boilers. But of Oldcastle himself, there was no sign. His hammock lay empty. Over in the transaction-engine pit, Jack could just see the metal skull of Coss Shaftcrank moving through the maze of thinking machines, checking the steam pressure of the dials as he reached up with an oil can to apply lubricant to a bank of rotating drums. Jack walked over to the rail.
‘Where’s Oldcastle?’ Jack asked, low enough not to wake up the pair of stokers.
‘I believe there is a game of chance being played down in the surgeon’s ward,’ said Coss. ‘Although the master cardsharp was rather insistent that there would be a degree of skill in its playing, which he believes he possesses in abundance.’
‘My father thought much the same,’ said Jack. ‘That and a couple of poor harvests was enough to lose our family everything we owned.’
‘The injection of unnecessary risk into a life is one trait of your people I have never understood, Jack softbody. By my rolling regulators, the great pattern of existence always seems capable of providing us ample dangers without going to the trouble of actively seeking them out.’